Nancy Grace libel case moves forward

3/10/14 11:24 AM EDT

A libel case brought against HLN host Nancy Grace by the nephew of Robert Kennedy has been cleared to move forward, a judge ruled Friday.

Michael Skakel is suing Grace for libel after an episode of her show in 2012 claimed that Skakel’s DNA was found at the crime scene of the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley (no DNA was found). Skakel, who was convicted in 2002 of the murder and sent to prison, is out on bail after his conviction was set aside last year by a state judge who ruled that Skakel had been deprived of effective counsel.

Judge Vanessa Bryant of United States District Court rejected Grace, legal commentator Beth Karas and the network's request for dismissal, writing that the statements were not "just a minor inaccuracy."

“Grace’s and Karas’s comments are not merely a gloss on Skakel’s conviction; their statements imply that hard, unfeeling, scientific, and direct evidence linked Skakel to the scene and conclusively corroborated his guilt, when such scientific certainty did not exist,” Bryant wrote. “This conclusion is particularly apt because the assertion that Skakel’s DNA was found near the Moxley crime scene not only is unquestionably false, it is also materially false. The presence of DNA at a crime scene is the type of evidence upon which most people would rely and would erase any notion of innocence.”